Word: zhitomir
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Russia. A stiffened Wehrmacht, bogged roads, overextended lines slowed the Red advance, halted it in some places. The Germans counterattacked, retook the rail center of Zhitomir, at the least gained time to strengthen a rear defense line...
...General Nikolai Vatutin, one of Russia's ablest exponents of blitz warfare, to strike west of Kiev with tanks and horsemen, without adequate infantry or cannon. The muddy roads delayed supplies and reinforcements, but the opportunity to deal the Wehrmacht a finishing blow was too tempting to forgo. Zhitomir fell (TIME, Nov. 22). The cavalry corps which took it seemed poised for a raid into prewar Poland...
...this time audacity's returns were poor. Vatutin had overextended himself, as he did in another crucial offensive west from Kharkov last spring. Without artillery support, the cavalry could not withstand strong German counterattacks. Last week it abandoned Zhitomir, in the first major reverse in the Red Army's great, 18-week offensive. The retreat was has tened by fierce German blows at the Russian flank east of Zhitomir...
...retreat, it has now acquired certain important advantages. Its supply lines from home bases have shrunk by hundreds of miles. Its railroads are in working order, whereas the Russians are still rebuilding theirs. The Red Army's bold tactics have of necessity exposed a number of vulnerable points-Zhitomir, Fastov, Krivoi Rog-which the Germans were quick to attack. Though most of these thrusts have been repulsed, they did halt the tide of the Red offensive. Finally, the Wehrmacht apparently has reserves which it has now thrown into the battle (at Zhitomir, the German force was estimated...
...Central Staff knows the total guerrilla strength, but it must run into hundreds of thousands. In the Army of the Bryansk Forest alone, 3,200 men and women won guerrilla and Red Army decorations. Other "Armies of the Forest" -between Kiev and Zhitomir (see map), in the Pripet Marshes, in White Russia and the Crimean Peninsula-are as big, or bigger...